Saturday, July 04, 2009

Interesting!

Interesting!



If you are bored today, check out Codex Diplomaticus Fuldensis 466.

Kind of interesting... usually, the person handing over his possessions orders the charter to be drawn up ...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

But does he? Usually, yes, the actor is the voice of the charter, but it's drawn up by the recipient. I think this is a lovely example (not least because of the man caring for his old slaves) but is it not just that for once the appeal to the documentary technicians for a way to have a proper record of an odd case has come through explicitly? And if you don't think that, will you object if I use it as an example of that anyway?

Another Damned Medievalist said...

Well, in a large number of the Fulda charters, especially the earlier ones, the first name on the witness list is goes something like, "Adalpraht, qui hanc traditionis kartam fieri rogavit."

But here's where I may be embarrassing myself in this paper ... I didn't realise that the charter was normally drawn up by the recipient.

Go ahead and use the example, but we may have to talk seriously about this at the St. Andrews conference, because one of the things I'm seeing might either make me look like an idiot, or might be genuinely interesting...

There are a lot of docs in this collection where the witness list begins with "sign. Adalraht qui hanc traditionis kartam fieri rogavit" -- one of the things I'm looking at is the ones that don't. Eep. Can I back out now?

Anonymous said...

Well, we don't know that the charter is usually drawn up by the recipient, though there's some work on papal stuff that demonstrates it for that and some on Anglo-Saxon documents where they have identifiable `house styles' for Winchester and some other houses at various points. But for Spain, Francia, etc., it's assumption. Best way to tell is to identify the scribe if possible, but even then, pinning him to an institution is not immediately simple. So, I exaggerate a bit I guess.

There is however an interesting difference here between your stuff and my stuff. My stuff, instead of that clause, would have "Adalbert S+ qui hanc cartam venditionis feci et firmare rogavit", referring one assumes to the witnesses who then follow. Your stuff is actually truer to what happens, in as much as someone else (almost) always acually writes the document, but it's interesting that your area's stock formula makes someone else the agent, even if not the initiator.

We can of course talk of all of this and more, er, tomorrow I guess, if you're around then. Do you still have my mobile no. And is your British one still the same?

Another Damned Medievalist said...

My British one is the same, and I will be heading to St. Andrews tomorrow at about 1300, I think...